Well, I was able to get Windows Steam running on Kubuntu, and games do run but with noticeable performance differences. How this will affect Pinball Arcade, I don't know, but I won't be able to test until later. I was able to verify that Audacity and audio recording work just 'swell. I also want to try out various FOSS video editing programs.

Kubuntu works, but it seems KDE is starting to get very heavy even on hardware like Pearl. I gave the Ubuntu MATE (ma-tay) LiveCD a spin and already it's far more responsive than KDE. MATE is a continuation of the old GNOME 2.x code which I am familiar with and seems far more lightweight than KDE. Thus, time to back up the data again and try MATE.

If push comes to shove, I may end up either creating another PC solely for Windows games, or go the dual-boot route.

Dual-booting would be good but that would come at the cost of having to reboot in order to run a game or application on the other system. I remember going UpToEleven and triple-booting Windows 7, macOS and Ubuntu just because I feel like it, though eventually that went south when the Hitachi hard drive failed.

So, looks like Ubuntu MATE it is. Very stable and responsive. Here is my software selection:

Browser - Google Chrome. Chrome works the best. Firefox seems a bit sluggish, but it also does even under Windows.
Media player - Audacious. It's as close as you can get to Winamp. VLC is for playing videos or getting screencaps from DVDs.
Audio editor - Audacity
Video Editor - KDEnlive is a good candidate. A test render under Kubuntu seemed to work just fine and it has a reverse effect now, which is necessary if I ever feel like making a YTP again.

Browser - Google Chrome. Chrome works the best. Firefox seems a bit sluggish, but it also does even under Windows.
Media player - Audacious. It's as close as you can get to Winamp. VLC is for playing videos or getting screencaps from DVDs.
Audio editor - Audacity
Video Editor - KDEnlive is a good candidate. A test render under Kubuntu seemed to work just fine and it has a reverse effect now, which is necessary if I ever feel like making a YTP again.

Proprietary Nvidia drivers are being used and are easy to set up.

I also tend to notice that Firefox tends to chug up too much on integrated graphics, especially as the processor is used more often in lieu of a capable GPU. I might as well try Audacious as well, given how stale Winamp development has been lately. On the Android side of things, Shuffle is a worthy replacement, though it lacks Shoutcast support which I tend to play at times for oldies and/or OTR stuff.

Oh, and figured you might want to whitelist this site on uBlock lol. Some dude made an ad bid for the site through Project Wonderful, and I hope this one goes well.

It works perfectly in terms of graphics. I haven't played it yet, but I ran the demo of "Castle Storm" and at 16x MSAA and 1920x1080 resolution, a perfect smooth framerate. Playtesting will come later, but seeing as Pinball Arcade graphics are similar, that gives me hope Pinball Arcade will run just fine.

I'm making my way around KDEnlive, and it's a very capable editor. The reverse effect needs improvement, but it will do for YTP videos. For TV commercial compilations and home videos, it will be perfect. I just need to get over the learning curve.

Perhaps this is the year I finally make the switch to Linux. I'm no Windows/MS hater, but Win10 isn't perfect. It works as a desktop OS, but I hardly use Metro apps and many are baked in the system. The forced driver updates are also a concern too even if you can blacklist certain versions.

Well, Ubuntu Mate is almost a perfect replacement OS, except I ran across an issue with Pinball Arcade.

Pinball Arcade runs with smooth framerate. It's stuck in a small window though, and resizing doesn't help. I can't launch the configuration utility because it instantly crashes and nothing pops up. I haven't been able to find any solutions for this, so either my Wine setup is a bit off, or the latest version doesn't quite work with Wine just yet. Also, the Steam store pages are black. Nothing ever shows up. Bug reports blame the switch to using a sandboxed version of the Chromium engine. I tried to run the program with a flag that was stated to fix this, but it didn't work.

I also ran into an issue with KDEnlive running under MATE. The program runs fine and renders video projects well, but when you try to save the project, it brings up a completely blank Save As window. By using MATE Tweak to turn off the desktop compisition, I can make the window contents appear as normal and it continues to do so afterward. But it would be highly inconvenient to keep doing that just to save a project first time around. I will try reinstalling, but if that doesn't work then I may have to try another OS.

PCLinuxOS is my final candidate for a good Linux system. In my original Linux phase (2005 to 2008), this was my go to system because everything just worked out of the box. It was originally forked off MandrakeLinux and retains it's rather nifty control center for system configuration. Installing proprietary drivers is easy and it's offered in various flavors, including the Trinity Desktop Environment, a continuation of the old KDE3 base. I will give that a go.

If that doesn't solve these final two issues, then I guess it's either figuring out a dual boot solution, or switching back to Win10. I don't hate Win10, but Linux performs so much better once it's set up right.

Seeing as how PinballFX 2 is just a MS rebadge of Zen Studio's "Zen Pinball", a Linux port isn't totally out of the question under the original name. The devs of Pinball Arcade do have a Linux port in mind, but they state it's low priority as they want to focus on the modern game consoles and PC first.

The Linux version of Steam has lots of games available since they have their own Linux spin, SteamOS. There are even some AAA games to boot. Perhaps if Linux becomes more popular due to MS introducing controversial features into their OS, game developers may see Linux development as financially viable.

I mean, Android runs off a Linux kernel, and the NES Classic Mini also runs off Linux. Linux seems to be very popular among embedded systems and small gadgets, but it's still isn't nearly as popular on the desktop.